Posted
by
msmash
on Friday February 17, 2017 @09:40AM
from the more-trouble dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: BlackBerry is facing a class-action lawsuit from more than 300 former employees across Canada, according to a news release from law firm Nelligan O'Brien Payne LLP. The Waterloo, Ontario-based tech company is accused of denying employees their termination entitlements by transferring them to a partner company and, once they had accepted employment there, handed them resignation letters. The former employees were then allegedly given their final date of work. "BlackBerry's actions amount to a termination of the employees' employment," the law firm said. "This entitles these employees to statutory, common law, and/or contractual entitlements on termination."

Yeah in Canada they're called TFW's(temporary foreign workers), and unlike H1B's a TFW can replace any job at any level if the company can work out a way to claim there isn't someone to fill it. The Royal Bank of Canada was caught doing this a few years ago. [www.cbc.ca] But it's happened across skilled trades, white collar workers, blue collar, take your pick.

As described the events were undertaken to reduce the class of employees' time at their employer to 0 in a fairly blatant attempt to do an end run around Canadian Labor laws with respect to severance based on time at Blackberry. See constructive dismissal.

this is not about legal termination, this is about the company trying to pull a fast one in order to get out of paying severance pay BECAUSE they didnt have a legal reason to fire them but they didnt want to have to pay the amount that they are legally obligated to pay.Otherwise they would have justly terminated the employees with cause (and proper documentation)

Why are these laws so important? because they promote job security and job security is good for the economy.

Where do you work? would you be ok with your employer coming up to you and for no reason telling you to clean out your desk and get out? would you be ok with not getting any compensation at all, just told to GTFO?

they are not special little snowflakes as you so put it, they are the ones making sure that the company that you work for cant just do this to you. so, maybe they are better than you because they chose to fight rather than roll over for their corporate overlords.

> Where do you work? would you be ok with your employer coming up to you and for no reason telling you to clean out your desk and get out? would you be ok with not getting any compensation at all, just told to GTFO?> they are not special

I wouldn't really complain if they did, just as I could quit for any reason or no reason. I quit my last job, simply because I got a much better offer. My last employer was good to me, yet I "fired" them when something better came along. My wife decided to quit her jo

In my last couple weeks at my last employer I worked hard to get them ready for my departure - documenting things, walking people through tasks that had been my responsibility, helping review resumes for my replacement, etc. I also stressed repeatedly that it seemed likely they would occasionally come across some code or configuration I had done and it would be helpful to ask me about it - so please ask! I told them if I could save them two or hours trying to figure something out, by me taking five minute

It sounds like you gave a two week notice (or whatever length of time), the previous comment you made sounded like you just walked out one day, which is where the burning bridges comment above appears to come from.

There is never anything wrong with leaving a company for whatever reason, but it is wise to give proper notice before leaving the company to not leave them in a lurch.

Where do you work? would you be ok with your employer coming up to you and for no reason telling you to clean out your desk and get out? would you be ok with not getting any compensation at all, just told to GTFO?

Your contract covers this scenario however. That is, both parties agree that you quitting is an acceptable outcome. Most places will require a minimum of X weeks notice (some as many as 3 months in very senior roles) to aid the handover of responsibilities and find replacements. There is a distinct difference when the termination is a surprise, and not a result of breaking the contract. If an employee does something in violation of their contract, sure, instant dismissal is expected, and there is an assump

This is in Ontario Canada. This is most definitely not an "at-will" jurisdiction when it comes to employment.The Ontario Labour Relations Act applies, along with common law. (The entitlements written down are not what applies -- it is what is "usual and customary" that applies in Ontario for severance compensation -- and that is *much* more generous than what is written in the legislation.)

Anyone subject to severance (of any kind) in Ontario should consult with a lawyer experienced with the practice of employment law in Ontario before signing anything.

Termination being acceptable by either party for any legal reason... why do these special snowflakes think they are better than the rest of us?

The practice is completely illegal in the United States because of labor laws. You can certainly get rid of people, but you can't transfer them to a subsidiary to do it, that's considered Unemployment Insurance fraud. Companies pay UI tax based on their history of employment and layoffs, and benefits are based on the amount of time people worked at the company. When you transfer people to another company before getting rid of them, it hides your real employment figures and that of the employees, fraudulently providing yourself a tax benefit.

I don't know what the system is like in Canada, but in the US they would be civilly AND criminally liable based on Federal law and state statutes.

I don't think BB would have violated any Federal laws up here, but they most certainly violated Ontario labor law. This is a classic case of constructive dismissal. Transferring employees to a subsidiary does not abrogate any legal or contractual obligations BB has to those employees, and since it's clear the intent here was to get them off of BB's books and then throw them out the door, that will make the constructive dismissal claims by the employees all the stronger.

Termination being acceptable by either party for any legal reason... why do these special snowflakes think they are better than the rest of us?

The practice is completely illegal in the United States because of labor laws. You can certainly get rid of people, but you can't transfer them to a subsidiary to do it, that's considered Unemployment Insurance fraud. Companies pay UI tax based on their history of employment and layoffs, and benefits are based on the amount of time people worked at the company. When you transfer people to another company before getting rid of them, it hides your real employment figures and that of the employees, fraudulently providing yourself a tax benefit.

I don't know what the system is like in Canada, but in the US they would be civilly AND criminally liable based on Federal law and state statutes.

Don't worry Congress & the Cheeto'n Charge will fix that so they don't have to worry about paying UI for the deadbeats they're getting rid of.

In Canadian Labour law there's the notion of "constructive dismissal" (I'm sure there must be similar principles in the US), wherein an employer creates conditions in which an employee is effectively terminated, without an actual notice of layoff or termination. The classic example is reducing an employee's hours to or near 0. In most jurisdictions in Canada, "constructive dismissal" is viewed as a termination, and when that happens, no notice has been given commensurate with the employee's length of time w

It's the way the source press release was worded. From the press release of Nelligan O’Brien Payne LLP, who commenced the class action, "Only after employees accepted employment with the business partner, BlackBerry informed the employees that they had resigned their employment. Blackberry provided resignation letters for the employees to sign and dictated their last date of employment."

"once they had accepted employment there, handed them resignation letters"

Isn't resignation something the employee hands to the employer, not the other way around? Am I missing something here, or is this just shoddy journalism?

It's sort of a "you're fired, here's your resignation letter."

It seems to be implied that there were termination benefits (Severance package) at both companies, Blackberry and also the 2nd company. By signing the resignation letters at the 2nd company they may have been bribed by some kind of severance package that is much less than what they would have got from BB.

If they refused to sign the letter they got nothing. Thus the agreement to sign a resignation letter they didn't write.

By transferring them to the second company it relieves BB from the obligations of the (assumed) much larger BB severance package.

Dirty underhanded shenanigans either way. Thus the lawsuit that I presume BB will lose.

It boggles my mind to think that somewhere there is a upper management or C-suite executive that hatched and implemented this scheme and went home that day thinking 'job well done'. I wonder if his wife and kids are proud of him.

Actually I think this type of behavior probably is done by groups of people (committees, boards, etc) where they can feel like it's OK - as long as nobody disagrees, everyone else is OK with it too, so it can't be THAT bad.

It boggles my mind to think that somewhere there is a upper management or C-suite executive that hatched and implemented this scheme and went home that day thinking 'job well done'. I wonder if his wife and kids are proud of him.

Actually I think this type of behavior probably is done by groups of people (committees, boards, etc) where they can feel like it's OK - as long as nobody disagrees, everyone else is OK with it too, so it can't be THAT bad.

a room full of group think yes men (and women) could spin something like this idea to make it sound less evil than it is. Sure.

Or maybe they (BB) are hemorrhaging so much cash as they are pushed into the rubbish bin of electronics history that they were desperate to save this cash to keep the lights on. I don't know how bad off BB is but I know they are having a really bad time compared to their heyday.

My first thought is that people at that level are used to nickel and diming employees or shafting them outright already, this is just an extremely efficient way to do 300 of them at once.

My next, more charitable thought, is that maybe whoever approved it is probably personally desperate, too, and figures that it's him or someone else, might as well do whatever it takes to wring as much out of the sinking ship as possible. No sense falling on your sword for what will get done by others anyway.

BB will lose because a court will most certainly find that BB's obligation to those employees followed them to the subsidiary. That along with what appears to be clear motive to get them off of BB's books and then try a quick and dirty termination, not to mention the highly dubious nature of getting their signatures on a piece of paper, will almost certainly lead to extra damages being awarded.

BB should just pay them a boatload of fucking money (BB may not have customers, but it still has a fuck ton of cash

By transferring them to the second company it relieves BB from the obligations of the (assumed) much larger BB severance package.

Transferring an employee out to a different company is a severance. Unless their contract with BB specifying the severance terms explicitly provided for it, then the obligation to pay likely came into play as soon as the employee transferred to the other company without their consent.

Hundreds and hundreds of words, and they can't even name the partner company. Are these people formerly employed by Blackberry still employed by the partner company? If the partner company quickly went belly up or fired them, they've got a legitimate beef. If they're still employed but looking for a lump sum payment because they were forced to change companies, then they're trying to get unearned cash.

Wrong: Work laws ensure guarantees and benefits for employees given their time on the company, such as how much you get in a severance package, how many days of vacations and so on. Since the "transfer" is made by making them sign a RESIGNATION it makes them thus resign to their law-granted benefits from their years in Blackberry. This means, for example, that if they were then fired from the partner company a few months later their severance package would be near naught, compared to the package they would

BB is a long way from bankruptcy, so I would say that's an "advantage" it does not have, and as someone who has to deal with employment law in British Columbia, I can tell you that if you want an employee gone quickly and easily, you'd better be prepared to pay out a healthy severance of a week per year plus a significant amount on top, or you will be handed your ass in court. The last thing you ever want to be found to have pulled off was a constructive dismissal. You want a severance package to give to th

Canadian law differs a bit from US but the fact this was obviously an attempt to bypass employee protection laws there are civil and criminal penalties here. Technically jail time but I doubt that will happen.

Canadian fines are also really different from the US. This will be a major blackeye publically as well as financially to Blackberry.

Article is intentionally misleading. It's not outright false, but it's written so that a casual reader will think this happened:Blackberry transfers employees to sham company.Sham company (Blackberry) fires workers.

What happened is thatBlackberry transfers employees to Ford motor company of Canada.Blackberry informs employees (after arranging the transfer) that the years of service do not transfer over, and they don't get any severance.

You're repeating the summary with different words. Tomato, Blackberry is trying to cheat their way out of paying severance benefits, tomahtoe, Blackberry is trying to cheat their way out of paying severance benefits.